Page 6 - History of Portuguese in the Gulf_Neat

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ii INTRODUCTION.
that we are able to infer from his narrative, that during a
great part of his life—during his travels that pieccded his
arrival in Antwerp, he was a Christian, and even a devout
Catholic.”1
As to his parentage, birth, and early life, Pedro Teixeira
himself, however, is silent: except that he tells us, in the
prefatory note to his book, that he was in his youth much
addicted to the study of history.
To what profession or trade he was trained we do not
know ; and it is not easy to ascertain from his narratives
what was his occupation while in the East.2
Nor does Teixeira tell us the cause of his going to India,
or even the year in which he first sailed from Europe to
Asia. The earliest date that he mentions in connection
with his travels is 1587,3 and we may therefore conclude
that he arrived in India from Portugal in one of the ships
, of the fleet of 1586. Regarding this fleet, Couto gives us
details in his Decada Decima, Liv. VIII, cap. vi. He says:—
The King was advised that a fleet was being got ready in
England,4 its destination being unknown; and because, in case
1 In a letter to me Mr. Sinclair says : “ I take Teixeira never to
have been a Christian but ‘ from the teeth out.’”
2 Judging by his frequent references to drugs and their effects, and
by the fact of his being present on the occasion mentioned on p. 233,
infra, I cannot help thinking that he was a physician. This seems to
be supported by the incident related in chap, ix of the Viagc (p. 96,
infra). Moreover, in his Kings of Persia (Bk. I, chap, xxxv) Teixeira
describes at some length the practices of physicians in different
countries of the East, mostly from his own experience. I think it
is probable that Teixeira accompanied the various expeditions
mentioned below in a medical capacity.. Mr. Sinclair, writing to me,
says : “ I agree with you in supposing him to have been a physician—
rather an ‘irregular practitioner’ probably, and concerned in the drug
trade, and probably a speculator in gems.”
3 The sea-flood mentioned by him at p. 230 infra, as having
! occurred in 1585, I take to be described from hearsay report on his
visit to Ceylon in February, 1588.
4 This was doubtless the fleet of three ships that sailed on July 21st
" under the command of Thomas Cavendish, on a voyage round the
world by the Straits of Magellan and the Malayan Archipelago (see
the references to it in Calendar of State Papers in the Archives of
Simancas, vol. iii, 1580-86, pp. 578, 600, 610).
it
• >.2
INTRODUCTION. iii
1
they sought to go out to India to the parts about Malaca, he
wished to advise the captain of that fortress, in order that he
might get ready, and the Viceroy of India, that he might send him
help: therefore he ordered speed to be made with the galleon
Keys Magos, which was being got ready for Malaca, as captain of ft'' '.V
■■■■:
which had been nominated Joao Gago de Andrade, a fidalgo, and
a man that had been very long in India ;l and on 5th January,
1586,2 she set sail.3 And the King ordered to embark therein
Estevao da Veiga, with letters for the Viceroy D. Duarte, and one
for the captain of Mozambique, in which he told him that on that
:
ship’s arriving there he was at once to get ready some vessel for
% ■
Estevao da Veiga to go in to India, to fulfil his mission. . . . The r ::
rest of the fleet, which was to go to India, left during the whole
i
of March,4 and there went as captain-major thereof D. Jcronymo
Coutinho,5 who embarked in the ship S. Thome; the other
captains of his company were Antonio Gomes of the galleon i\
Bom Jesus, otherwise called Caranjap in which embarked Manoel
de Sousa Coutinho, full of honors and rewards, because he carried p
the captaincy of Malaca, and a voyage to Japao, and the captaincy
of Baz-aim, with which he had been provided some years before L:
on the marriage of a daughter, and the habit of Christ7 with a
good allowance; and, as was afterwards known, he came in the L/3j
second succession to the government of India, to which he soon
k
1 Couto first mentions him in his Dec. VIII, cap. vii, as making a y
voyage from Goa to Maluco in April, 1565. r
3 Fr. Joao dos Santos gives this same date (Ethiopia Oriental, Pt. 1, j
Liv. 11, cap. fcvii ; Theal’s Records of South-Eastern Africa, vol. xvii, ;
p. 342). Luiz de Figueiredo Falcao, however, in his Livro cm qua se 1"
contiim toda a fazenda, etc., says (p. 177) that the Keys Magos sailed
on December 29th, 1585. 11
11
* On February 14th she encountered an English ship and pinnace, :■
with which she had a severe fight, but succeeded in beating them off b
after considerable damage. Couto, who gives a graphic description
of the affair, says that Joao Gago, who was old and gouty, issued his ■
orders seated on a chair on the poop. It is not surprising to learn
that the old captain died soon after his ship reached Malacca in.
October.
4 Figueiredo Falcao (op. cit., p. 178) says that the fleet sailed on the !
nth of April ; and to the ships here named he adds the Conccpqdo, - ;
Captain Dom Jeronimo Mascarenhas. Friar Joao dos Santos, who u
went to Mozambique in the Sdo Thomt, says that they all left Lisbon
on April 13th, 1586 {Ethiopia Oriental\ Pt. I, Liv. I, cap. i ; Pt. II, n
Liv. 11, cap. xviii ; Theal's Records of South-Eastern Africa, vol. xvii,
pp. 1S4, 343).
6 See infra regarding him.
0 This ship was broken up on arriving in India (see Linschoten,
vol. ii, p. 189).
7 That is, of the Order of Christ. ^ ;
5 I
b 2
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